The undersigned organizations support the CFPB’s remittance rule and urge the bureau not to revisit or weaken it.
“A ‘remittance transfer’ means the electronic transfer of funds requested by a sender to a designated recipient that is sent by a remittance transfer provider.”
The experience of our organizations is that the remittance rule is working and is protecting money sent abroad and the financial security of U.S. residents who send this money. Prior to the remittance rule, customers had inadequate up-front information about fees and exchange rates needed to compare the cost of different services. Our surveys show that consumers now have more confidence when sending remittances. Moreover, the volume of remittances us up but the cost is down since the CFPP rule was adopted. The average cost of sending remittances has fallen to 5.67% in 2018 down from 6.75% in 2013.
Immigrants are more likely to be taken advantage of and less likely to feel empowered to assert their legal rights than other members of our society. Therefore, they are more vulnerable to both the mistakes and the deliberate malfeasance of those with whom they do business. Congress passed the statute requiring consumer protections for remittances in Section 1073, the Dodd-Frank Act, in a deliberate attempt to provide more protections to all remittance senders, including immigrants.
These regulations are required to be issued by statute, and much of what is in the regulations is
specified in the statute.